WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today led a committee hearing on the diabetes epidemic and obesity epidemic in America, what is fueling these crises, and what must be done to address them.
Sanders’ opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watched here:
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will come to order.
In America today we have a diabetes epidemic that is having a huge impact on our country and must be addressed.
Diabetes is not only a serious illness unto itself, but it is a contributing factor to heart disease, stroke, amputations, blindness, and kidney failure.
Type-1 diabetes is a major problem that impacts over 1.4 million Americans and we are going to be discussing that issue today. My understanding is that Senator Cassidy has brought two witnesses who are extremely knowledgeable about type-1 diabetes.
But I’d like to focus my remarks on type-2 diabetes which impacts about 95% of Americans with diabetes.
There is a whole lot that can be said about the diabetes crisis in America.
Here are just a few of the questions I would like to raise:
First, and most importantly, why have we seen a huge increase in the number of people in America who have developed diabetes over the last 50 years? What has changed?
Second, how is diabetes impacting our healthcare system?
Third, given the huge number of people who are struggling with diabetes, how can we make the treatments for this serious illness available to everyone who needs it regardless of income? Further, how can we save money in Medicaid, Medicare and other public health programs that pay for the treatment of diabetes as well as private health insurance?
First, the problem. Today, in America over 35 million Americans – over 10% of our population – have type-2 diabetes.
And the cost of treating that disease is staggering.
According to the American Diabetes Association, the total cost of diabetes in the U.S. was nearly $413 billion last year – up 27% over the past six years. This amounts to about ten percent of our total health care expenditures.
And when we talk about the type 2-diabetes epidemic, and the huge increase in new cases, we must also talk about the epidemic of obesity in America. Some 90% of people with type-2 diabetes are overweight or obese. These two epidemics go hand in hand.
A key question that we must discuss: How did it happen that, according to the CDC, the rate of childhood obesity in America has tripled since the 1970s and has gotten so bad that one out of every five kids, and over 40 percent of adults, in our country today are now obese?
Why is it that, according to the CDC, the number of children in America with type-2 diabetes is estimated to skyrocket by nearly 700% over the next 40 years unless we take action to reverse course?
The answers to those questions are not complicated.
For decades, we have allowed large corporations in the food and beverage industry to entice children to eat foods and beverages loaded up with sugar, salt and saturated fat purposely designed to be overeaten.
The situation has gotten so bad that most of what children in America eat today consist of unhealthy, ultra-processed foods that doctors have told us lead to a higher risk of type-2 diabetes.
Alarmingly, according to a recent study that will be discussed this morning, ultra-processed foods, which make up an incredible 73 percent of our nation’s food supply, can be as addictive as alcohol and nearly as addictive as cigarettes.
While the diabetes and obesity rates in America soar, while we spend hundreds of billions to treat diabetes, the food and beverage industry spent $14 billion last year on advertising to make many of their unhealthy products appealing to the American consumer.
Even worse, $2 billion of this money is used to directly market food predominantly high in sugar, salt and saturated fat to our children in order to get them hooked on these products at an early age.
According to the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, children and teens view about 4,000 food and beverage ads on television every year, an average of ten advertisements each day.
Another study found that children who watch Nickelodeon and Nicktoons are exposed to over ten unhealthy food and beverage ads every hour.
Let me give you one example. Last year, for example, Coca-Cola spent $327 million on advertising in the United States alone. Not one of their ads will tell you that drinking one or two cans of Coke a day will increase your chances of getting type-2 diabetes by 26 percent. Nor will their tv ads tell you that one 20-ounce bottle of Coke contains over 15 teaspoons of sugar – more than twice the recommended daily limit for kids under the age of 18.
Nearly 30 years ago, Congress had the courage to take on the tobacco industry whose products killed over 400,000 Americans every year. Congress did that then.
Now is the time for us to seriously combat the type-2 diabetes and obesity epidemic in America. In order to do that, we must have the courage to take on the greed of the food and beverage industry which, every day, is undermining the health and well-being of our children.
And, in my view, a good place to start would be to ban junk food ads targeted to children.
This is not a radical idea.
The NIH has estimated that if the US banned fast-food advertising marketed to children, we could cut the childhood obesity rate in our country by up to 18 percent.
In the 1980s, Quebec banned junk food advertising to children. Today, Quebec has the lowest childhood obesity rate in Canada and the highest consumption of fruits and vegetables of any province in their nation.
Ireland, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal and several other major countries throughout the world have either seriously restricted or banned junk food ads targeted to children.
In addition to addressing the causes of type-2 diabetes, there is another important issue that we have got to deal with. We have got to make certain that the treatments available to people with diabetes are affordable for all Americans, are not bankrupting federal health insurance programs, or raising the cost of private insurance.
The very good news is that a new class of treatments for diabetes and obesity like Ozempic and Mounjaro (Moon-jar-o) have the potential to be a game changer with respect to this major epidemic.
According to clinical trials, these drugs, which suppress appetites, have been estimated to help people lose 15 to 20 percent of their weight.
The bad news is that these drugs also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare and the American people.
According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, if just 10 percent of people with obesity on Medicare took these drugs, it could cost Medicare up to $27 billion a year driving Medicare premiums way, way up.
Further, incredibly, these drugs (Ozempic and Mounjaro) are up to 15 times more expensive in the United States than they are in other major countries.
For example, Ozempic, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, costs $12,000 a year in the United States, but just $750 in Germany.
Mounjaro, manufactured by Eli Lilly, costs $13,000 in the United States but just $2,000 in the United Kingdom.
Incredibly, it has been estimated that Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and others in the pharmaceutical industry stand to make as much as $150 billion off of these drugs – each and every year – while charging the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for these drugs.
That is unacceptable to me and to the American people who are sick and tired of being forced to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while the pharmaceutical companies make tens of billions in profits.
That is why I will be soon introducing legislation to prevent the pharmaceutical industry from charging the American people more for prescription drugs than they charge in other major countries like Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Japan.
If this bill were signed into law it could cut the price of prescription drugs in the United States by more than 50 percent.
And for obscenely expensive drugs, the savings could be far more.
If this legislation were enacted, it has been estimated that the price of Ozempic could be reduced from $12,000 a year to just $1,200.
In my view, we cannot continue to let pharmaceutical companies rip off the American people by charging whatever price they want for their products.
A prescription drug is not safe or effective for a patient who cannot afford it.
Senator Cassidy, you are now recognized for an opening statement.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Congress, National News, Press Release
Bernie would love to make this country as much as the country he honeymooned in after his first marriage…………….
Too funny! I could literally write the same screed for any (insert name here) consumable food or liquid.
But it isn’t about concern for anyone’s health, is it? Of course not! It’s just another method of CONTROL! But in a way, it does seem honorable to go after “junk food”, don’t you think? To that I say, then go after the junk food producers. Make them produce healthier foods. Make them remove all the chemicals and cellulose they use. Ever read an ingredients list? If you haven’t, you should.
And who decides what qualifies as “junk food” anyway? Look at pizza. Look at chicken wings. It’s not so black and white, is it? So I guess “the government” should decide then, right? They would be impartial, not kowtowing to the sugar lobby, the food manufacturers’ lobby, the potato lobby… wouldn’t they? They’d “trust the science”, wouldn’t they? And that science wouldn’t be manipulated, would it? Look at the mRNA “vaccines”. All settled science, quantified up the wazoo, no?
I propose we have two new taxes, the first one of 25% on all coffee and coffee byproducts, such as coffee-rubbed steak or coffee-flavored ice cream. In addition, sugar packets should be treated like narcotics and kept behind the counter. At least until you pay a dollar for one, sign a document indemnifying the seller, and agree to a facial scan.
My second proposal cuts right to the chase. Let’s just tax obese people! Who qualifies as obese? Anyone whose weight exceeds those “ideal weights by height for men and women” charts they had in the 1960s. Those were pretty realistic, right? Done! Mandatory weigh-ins for everyone monthly, with a $100/lb penalty for however many pounds you exceed the chart by. Think of the revenue! Boy oh boy!!!
Of course, I jest with my proposals. Wouldn’t want to give the control and surveillance state any more ideas, would I?
Robin Banks: I generally agree and “get” your humor. But I actually not only foresee that obese people will be and in many cases are actually paying a higher price for things in real dollars right now. And in general, I agree that obese people have many problems and that they need to eat healthier and be more active. Having said that, my sister-in-law has lipedema. Not to be confused with lymphedema. Literally, she could starve, go on a fast for 30 days and gain weight. These are deranged fat cells and they do not shrink or disappear no matter what she has done. And she has done a lot. The only treatment is removal and then, it’s not really permanent because the remaining fat cells can continue to function as the deranged ones. I actually think our food, vaccinations, chemicals etc, have a lot to do with this disease onset. If not are the outright cause of it. I myself am considered obese and yet I lift 50-pound feed bags weekly, 5-gallon buckets of water almost daily and tote them quite a distance. I walk almost 4 miles every day. I may be fat, but I am not necessarily unfit. And I have seen a huge number of lean, unfit people in my career as a RN. Actually, long term vegetarians/vegans are more unhealthy than some omnivores. But I digress.
I am not criticizing your comment. Just wanted to share some info. I hope that came across.
Best,
Pam Baker
A bridge to far. Let parents make that decision.
I know it’s probably just my right wing bias but doesn’t this look like the template for uninvited meddling in the lives of citizens? The more this kind of administrative management comes into focus, the creepier it gets. What day is it again am I supposed to change my socks…can you send me my teeth brushing schedule?
Many parents have turned over raising kids to the Government (public schools) anyways might as well throw in the FDA as well
Bernie, I’m sure you’d love to pull in more tax revenue but you’re way off the target. And the target is government and Big Pharma. Just stop heavily subsidizing the industrial style mono culture farmers use to produce the crops used to make the junk food. That would be primarily corn, soy, wheat, and rice. These are the cheap ingredients junk food manufacturers use, but it’s not just the sugar and carbs. It’s also the fertilizers and chemicals used in growing that contaminate the junk food. Not to mention the destruction of available nutrients in the soil. Stop blaming the shoppers who rely on these cheap foods to feed their families. The good nutritious food is out of reach for many, and not just the poor. Look what inflation has done to the price of milk, eggs, apples and oranges.
The government is responsible for subsidizing the cheap junk food that lines the shelves of grocery stores, not the children and parents buying it. That includes all the sugary cereal, snacks and drinks and most convenience foods. Why aren’t you subsidizing the good stuff, the fruits and vegetables, and make them more affordable for the American people so they won’t have to rely on cheap junk food?
You’ve got the whole thing upside down, Bernie. It’s a lot like trying to cage the virus after it’s escaped the government financed lab. Limiting access to unhealthy but affordable food by taxation or any of your other suggested measures is counterproductive. Worse, it continues to support the practices and source of the problem. As long as Congress and the alphabet agencies are financed by Big Pharma nothing will improve. Big Pharma loves all this illness, it make them billions. End Citizens United.
Thank you Cathy. You are 100 percent correct.
spoken by a man whom is a producer of nothing in his life
This is a great cause to support along with doing something about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, but here is my question: What has Senator Sanders actually accomplished in either of these two areas? In fact what has he actually accomplished on anything in his time in Congress? The last I looked (which was in the last 6 months), only three of the bills he has introduced since his time in Congress (1991- 2024) have become law, and two of them have to do with renaming Post Offices in Vermont. He has been in Washington over 30 years. That is terrible record. When I ask my friends that support him about it, they say that is not a fair assessment of his time, as he has been successful in leading a movement. There are a lot of legislators in Washington leading movements, but that is not solving the many problems we face as a nation. Congress needs to accomplish something other than increasing their personal wealth and that of their family and friends. Mr. Sanders needs to go.
Correction: 1991 – “2023”
Bernie has accomplished a couple of things. He has made himself and family quite wealthy while at the public trough. A lot of help with the management of the former Burlington College; I wonder about the true story there. Leading a movement? Maybe the “OK for me but not for thee” movement.
Ban taxpayer funded subsidies to Agribusiness. No more farm bills. Local small farmers can then compete and provide healthy food for everyone.
We need a State Constitutional amendment like Maine has done for food sovereignty. I just attended the first Liberty Food Fest in Bellows Falls this weekend.
Basically, “In towns that have declared food sovereignty, the local municipality has shouldered the responsibility for ensuring that food sold within its territory is safe, with a goal of making it easier for area residents to buy and sell local foods. Prior to the new law, technically producers in food sovereign towns still had to abide by state law. Once the new law takes effect this fall, local, municipal laws in food-sovereign towns will supercede (sic) state laws.”
That was from this website:
https://mainefarmersmarkets.org/food-sovereignty/
I wish a conservative would promote this in Vermont legislature because it would be vital and the leftists/marxists/progressives would be hard pressed to argue against it. They will of course, but then they will look bad.
Just my humble opine.
Pam Baker
I read the article and the only ban I saw being advocated for was a ban on advertising junk food to children. The Vermont Daily headline says, “Sanders: Ban Junk Food Sales to Children.” I’m no fan of Bernie, but sales and advertising are not the same things.
Vermont Daily, what is the truth? Your headline, or the transcript?